Ethnic Proximity and Ethnic Voting in Peru
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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. , – © Cambridge University Press doi:./SX Ethnic Proximity and Ethnic Voting in Peru RAÚL L. MADRID* Abstract. Peru, in contrast to neighbouring Bolivia and Ecuador, has neither an important indigenous party nor a strong indigenous movement. Nevertheless, in recent years a growing gap has emerged in the voting patterns of indigenous and non- indigenous areas. This article maintains that this gap has developed because some Peruvian politicians, including Alberto Fujimori, Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala, successfully wooed indigenous voters with a combination of ethnic and populist appeals. Like traditional populist leaders, they denounced the political elites, focused their campaigns on the poor and presented themselves as the saviours of Peru, but also forged ties to indigenous leaders, invoked indigenous symbols and embraced some ethnic demands. Although neither Fujimori, nor Toledo, nor Humala self- identified as indigenous, they successfully presented themselves as more ethnically proximate to the indigenous population than their main competitors, who represented the white Lima elite. Keywords: Peru, indigenous movement, elections, ethnic politics, populism Ethnic cleavages have become increasingly important in Peruvian electoral politics. In the last decade, a growing gap has emerged in the voting patterns of indigenous and non-indigenous areas. This gap, which was first noticeable during the run-off election between Alberto Fujimori and Mario Vargas Llosa, resurfaced in the and elections and grew even wider in the elections. Whereas indigenous areas voted heavily for Alejandro Toledo in and Ollanta Humala in , non-indigenous areas voted predominantly for Alan Garcia and Lourdes Flores in these years. Raúl L. Madrid is associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Email: rmadrid@ austin.utexas.edu. * The author would like to thank Eduardo Dargent, Henry Dietz, Paula Muñoz, Maritza Paredes and Kurt Weyland, as well as the four anonymous reviewers and the editors of the JLAS, for their comments on previous versions of this article. By contrast, class cleavages remain relatively unimportant in Peruvian electoral politics. See Kenneth M. Roberts, ‘Social Inequalities without Class Cleavages in Latin America’s Neoliberal Era’, Studies in Comparative International Development, : (), pp. –; Kenneth M. Roberts and Moisés Arce, ‘Neoliberalism and Lower-class Voting Behavior in Peru’, Comparative Political Studies, : (), pp. –. The author completed this article in late , before the presidential campaign was fully under way. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:15:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X11000034 Raùl L. Madrid This gap is puzzling considering that Peru, unlike Bolivia and Ecuador, has no national-level indigenous parties, nor has any major presidential candidate self-identified as indigenous. What, then, led to the emergence of an ethnic voting gap? Why did indigenous people vote en masse for certain parties and candidates that had not even identified as indigenous? This article maintains that the ethnic voting gap developed because Peruvian politicians successfully wooed indigenous voters with a combination of ethnic and populist appeals. Fujimori, Toledo and Humala reached out to indigenous voters by recruiting indigenous candidates, invoking indigenous symbols and embracing indigenous demands. Although none of the three self- identified as indigenous, they presented themselves as more ethnically proximate to the indigenous population than their main competitors, who represented the white Lima elite. Thus, ethnic appeals formed an important part of their efforts to win indigenous support. Populist appeals were even more fundamental to their efforts to attract indigenous voters, however. Fujimori, Toledo and Humala denounced the traditional parties and political elites, focused their campaigns and proposals on the poor and emphasised their own personal achievements and popular origins. These appeals resonated especially well with indigenous voters because they are disproportionately poor and politically disenchanted, and have only weak attachments to the existing parties. Ethno-populist appeals have been used quite successfully in election campaigns in Bolivia and Ecuador as well. The main difference, however, is that in Peru politicians have relied more on populist appeals and less on ethnic appeals. Moreover, such appeals have been made not by indigenous leaders based in powerful indigenous movements, but rather by ethnic and political outsiders heading personalist movements. As the conclusion discusses, the more populist approach taken in Peru has led to greater electoral volatility than in neighbouring countries. This article unfolds as follows. The first section discusses Peru’s ethnic makeup and the emergence of an ethnic voting gap there. The second section examines existing theories of ethnic voting and lays out the main argument. It contends that Fujimori, Toledo and Humala won the support of indigenous voters by appealing to them as indigenous people, but also as poor and politically disenchanted citizens. The next three sections examine in more detail the various ethnic and populist appeals employed by these three Nevertheless, some of the presidential candidates were clearly of indigenous descent, including not only Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala, but also Máximo San Román and Ciro Gálvez. Raúl L. Madrid, ‘The Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America’, World Politics, : (), pp. –. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:15:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X11000034 Ethnic Proximity and Ethnic Voting in Peru presidential candidates. It shows how these appeals helped each of them win the support of indigenous as well as non-indigenous voters. The sixth section briefly discusses how regional movements have used ethno-populist appeals in local elections. The conclusion examines the impact of ethno-populist linkages on electoral stability in Peru. Ethnicity and the Ethnic Voting Gap in Peru Peru has a large population of indigenous descent, but most do not self- identify as ‘Indian’ or ‘indigenous’ because of the social stigma attached to these terms. Moreover, the state has traditionally discouraged indigenous people from identifying as such. For example, the administration of Juan Velasco Alvarado led a campaign to recast highland Indians as peasants in the official discourse. In spite of these pressures, many indigenous people have continued to identify with indigenous ethno-linguistic categories, such as Quechua or Aymara, although they do not refer to themselves as Indians or indigenous per se. The census found that . per cent of the population above years of age considered themselves of Quechua origin, . per cent considered themselves Aymara, and . per cent identified with some Amazonian indigenous group. The majority of Peruvians identify as mestizo – in the census, . per cent of the population self-identified as such – but there is a great deal of variance within this category. Some mestizos have a mostly European appearance and few, if any, ties to indigenous culture, but many people who self-identify as mestizo appear indigenous, speak indigenous languages and/or practice indigenous customs. These people have been referred to by some academics as indigenous mestizos, but they are often popularly referred to as cholos. Mestizaje or racial/ethnic mixing has blurred the boundaries between groups and created considerable ethnic ambiguity in Peru, but it has not eliminated ethnic inequalities and discrimination. Indigenous people tend to be much poorer and less well educated than their white and mestizo counterparts, and suffer from a great deal of social prejudice. Various surveys have found that Peruvians who speak indigenous languages are more likely to report having personally experienced discrimination and to believe that ethnic Carolina Trivelli, Los hogares indígenas y la pobreza en el Perú: una mirada a partir de la información cuantitativa (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, ). Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI), Estado de la población peruana: indocumentación y grupos étnicos (Lima: INEI, ), p. Ibid. Marisol de la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, – (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, ). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:15:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X11000034 Raùl L. Madrid discrimination is widespread. A survey found that . per cent of indigenous households fell below the poverty line, as opposed to per cent of non-indigenous households. Indigenous people have also traditionally been politically marginalised. Most of the indigenous population lives in the highlands, far from the political and economic centre of the country, and indigenous people have occupied relatively few positions of power. The economic, political and social exclusion of the indigenous population has created some ethnic resentment toward the dominant white and mestizo elites, which has been compounded by regional tensions. Although the